Lead Time
Lead Time
Dreaming BIG in the LCMS with Pastor Matt Popovits
Ever wondered how a shift from musical theater to ministry could shape a dynamic pastoral career? Join us for an inspiring chat with Pastor Matt Popovits, senior pastor at St. Mark Lutheran in Houston, Texas, as he shares his remarkable journey and the pivotal role that mentorship played in his transformation. Learn how empowering young leaders within the church can pave the way for future generations, and gain insights into how recognizing potential can lead to fulfilling and impactful ministry roles.
Maintaining humility in leadership is no small feat, especially for pastors. Pastor Matt reveals how a supportive spouse and a grounded family life are essential in keeping one's ego in check, sharing personal anecdotes that highlight the importance of staying true to oneself. We also discuss the dangers of narcissism and its effects on leadership, emphasizing the need for constant communication and clear boundaries to foster a balanced, courageous team environment. Discover practical advice on creating an atmosphere of courageous love and trust, reflecting the teachings of Jesus.
Crafting a memorable sermon requires more than just good intentions; it demands effective communication techniques and thorough preparation. Reverend Matt opens up about his methods, from using full sentences and intentional points to employing creative memorization techniques. We explore the balance between preaching and organizational direction, discussing how the tone and content of sermons can implicitly set leadership goals. Finally, we touch on the exciting potential for a new day in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and the importance of dreaming big while managing well. Don’t miss this episode filled with wisdom, encouragement, and actionable advice for leaders in pastoral ministry.
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Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here with Jack Kauberg. It is a beautiful day in the neighborhood, hot and humid here in Phoenix, arizona, and our guest probably has experienced some heat and humidity as well. It's the one and only Reverend, matt Popovitz. Let me tell you a little bit about Matt if you don't know him. He lives and works in Houston, texas. So, matt, is it hot and sweaty there in Houston right now. Always without fail. Yeah, yeah, for real, we went to the National Youth Gathering there.
Speaker 3:We're getting a little taste of it, yeah we are.
Speaker 1:It feels like Houston here, right now, so let me tell you about Matt.
Speaker 1:Matt serves as senior pastor at St Mark Lutheran in Houston and they have a church and a school. Our contacts are very, very similar to Christ Greenfield here. Matt is also the founder of Make it Simple. You can hit him up at makeitsimpleorg, a ministry that communicates life-changing truths in understandable ways and equips others to do the same. Matt is also the author of Junk Drawer Jesus and Tough Call. He's also the host of what Matters Most Radio and Make it Simple Podcast. Matt and his high school sweetheart, lisa, are the proud parents of Ava, elise and Jack Matthews. So, matt, how are you feeling today? Buddy, thanks for hanging with us.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling great, tim. I think it's been forever since you and I have had a chance to chat, so I'm really looking forward to this and I'm excited to get to know you, jack.
Speaker 1:Yeah, likewise, the joy is ours. So let's just tell your pastoral ministry journey a little bit. Why are you a pastor, matt?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a pastor because my pastor in my home congregation growing up really planted that seed and nurtured it into fruition. I did not grow up wanting to be a pastor. I don't have anybody in my family who is in full-time vocational ministry. I was just really involved at my home congregation. I went to undergrad to study theater performance. So my undergraduate degree is in musical theater from the University of Michigan and that's what I really wanted to do.
Speaker 2:But while I was doing that, I was really involved at my home congregation and my pastor just kind of kept giving me opportunity after opportunity to not only grow in my faith but to express my faith in leadership opportunities in the local church. Like he really shouldn't have given all the opportunities he gave me, like at 16, 17 years old, he's letting me teach Bible studies. I preached for him once when I was like 18. And all of that, all of that was just used to then kind of plant the seed of well, maybe, maybe ministry is is what I need to be doing. And, sure enough, by the time I'd actually made that decision it was my junior year of undergrad. I said, you know what? I think I'm supposed to be a pastor, so I'm going to take the qualifying exams and things to get into the seminary.
Speaker 2:And again, I had no background in this whatsoever. And I'm looking at the books that you're supposed to read to study for these exams and I'm thinking I have one of these books. I have one of these books and sure enough, I had one of those books at home on my parents' bookshelf and it was given to me for my confirmation by my pastor years and years earlier and I opened it up. I'd never read it. I opened it up. On the inside cover it said, dear Matt, happy confirmation, this is for your future pastoral library. And so he saw this. Yeah, yeah, that was when I was 14 years old and he just kept giving me opportunities, giving me opportunities, and then eventually I was like man, I should do this. And he was like I know you should, and he'd already given me the books to study for it. So I'm a product of my pastor, my home congregation, seeing this and being responsive to, I think, what the Holy Spirit was telling him, and that's why I'm here.
Speaker 1:You got to drop his name Matt. What's his name?
Speaker 2:Yeah, his name is. He's now retired. He retired, I think, two years ago, cliff Bira, and he served in Flushing, michigan, at Holy Cross Lutheran Church for like 40 years and there's been multiple people who've gone into full-time vocational ministry from that congregation. There's uh professors in the Concordia university system who grew up with me, who were nurtured in that same environment. Um, so he's, you know his, his legacy is one where, where, where he has, he has inspired a whole generation of other people to become leaders in the church.
Speaker 1:Shout out to Cliff man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, pastor Cliff.
Speaker 1:Great job we need more.
Speaker 1:Cliffs, cliff, praise God for you, bro. And more pastors seen in kids, in older adults, seeing things that they don't see in themselves and casting vision for their life. Isn't that wild how God works? Because I have a similar, similar story, not just my dad, but think of my DCE and folks like that that said, hey, I see this in you, really, really young. I mean I, I didn't preach for my dad. My dad was jealous for the pulpit, but he, let me do different, different things. Uh, in leadership in my DCE, tim Lindeman, I think. I got to lead Bible studies a number of different times through high school with them.
Speaker 1:So yeah, give them invitation, have them watch and then do and debrief and it's just a beautiful journey and it makes pastoral ministry, when you live in, an equipping, empowering, releasing, creative, curious, adventurous culture in the church. It's just like the most fun thing ever, matt, like I just want more of that. So is that? How has that sort of empowering leadership inspired you to this day?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I have never known ministry apart from trying to do for others what was done for me, and so the model for me as a pastor is someone who is ready to give their job away to other people and to raise up other people and plant seeds of what could be and what God might be doing in the hearts and minds of other people. So for me, because that was my background with my pastor growing up, that's just always been part of how I do ministry, and so trying to see what the Lord might be doing in young adults, giving opportunity, maybe before other people would give that opportunity, is just always kind of Before they even feel ready, sometimes right Part of what I've done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think anyone who's in a leadership position of any sort is there because somebody ultimately saw something in them that maybe others didn't or they didn't see. And so I think a part of leadership should always be, and must always be, looking around and saying who out there is not yet of the age and at the stage where they're doing what I'm doing, but could be and should be and should be thinking about it and trying to plant those seeds, like scatter them aggressively all over the place and see what the Lord does to water them and nurture them and grow them.
Speaker 1:So good. So I've been watching your ministry from afar and just been impacted by your communication skills, like God really, really gifted you to share the gospel, to inspire others, to help with creative communications, et cetera. Your work at the National Youth Gatherings was really, really fantastic, and so how do you keep from becoming a narcissist?
Speaker 1:I'm serious about that because I'm sure you have a lot of folks that say, man, matt, you're, you're really great. You know, just like I kind of built you up like that, how do you keep from saying, man, I'm a real big deal?
Speaker 2:Well I think, uh, it really is a good question. Uh, and it's a good question for, I think again, anybody who's in a leadership position, because so much of the world in which you're a leader is just it's, it's all just kind of designed around you in so many ways, and it's easy to then transfer that to every other sphere of life and think, well, it's, it's all. It all has to kind of rotate around me, it's all about me, it all reflects on me and it's it's really easy to fall into to narcissism. I think this is where, for me, I think, a really a really awesome wife is extremely helpful to just keep me in check when I start to think that the whole world revolves around me or that I am utterly indispensable to the whole world. She's really good at keeping me humble in very loving, very compassionate ways. To a greater degree, I think a leader who wants to stay humble has to surround themselves with people who just need them to be a person and nothing else, who just need them to be dad, who just need them to be husband, who just need them to be friend and don't need anything Like. My kids don't need me to be a great speaker, they just need me to be a present father. My wife doesn't need me to be a great speaker, she just needs me to be a present and available friend and husband to her. And so I think surrounding yourself with people with whom it's okay to just be a person and where they need other things from you than your giftedness, is really critical because it reminds you of your, your own humanity. And you know my, my kids don't care If I preach a terrible sermon. My kids do not care. If I preach a great sermon, my kids do not care, and that's the best thing in the world, you know.
Speaker 2:So, like years ago, I, you know my, again, my, my wife is. I give her a ton of credit in this because, you know, we're high school sweethearts, we've known each other forever and um, uh, when I first became a pastor, I came out of the world of theater and performance, and so, you know, performing, getting feedback, uh, doing it quite literally for applause, was my whole childhood. Up until my early twenties was just in that world, and so then I transferred that over to to ministry, and that's not a healthy, that's not a healthy dynamic for ministry to be like. Well, I'm here for the applause and, um, I'd like to know what the reviews are for this latest performance. That doesn't, that doesn't work well for, uh, for pastoral ministry, at least not for the longterm. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:To me she said, matt, I just don't, I don't feel like it's fair for me to have to be that person for you and I also don't think it's healthy for you. That's the conversation we had. She said I don't want to feel the pressure when I come home from Sundays to have to give you a review of your sermon or to feel like I hold your ego in my hands. And she said and I also just don't think that that's healthy for our relationship, right, I just want to be able to go to church and forget about the sermon like everybody else does. And she was right, she was right, she was right. Like she doesn't need to have that play, that part in my life. And so for me to stay healthy is to have a wife who just needs me to be a husband and kids who just need me to be a dad, and friends. You know, I can tell them anything and they're not going to push away from the table, they're going to stay there and stick it out with me. That's just critical.
Speaker 3:People who don't need your giftedness. They just need your presence and your love. Yeah, Jack, go ahead. The problem with narcissism and I've been thinking deeply about this because our team's been preaching about the topic of pride over the last few days here and on Sunday is, if you're a narcissist, one of the problems is in your head.
Speaker 3:You're telling yourself that you're great, Right, and yeah the fact that that's how you're talking to yourself makes it hard for you to see that you actually need more humility, and so you need to have a community of people, and the Lord brings this community around you, and their role is to say hey Jack, you've got some blind sides here, there's some gaps here, and part of their vocation actually is to help you realize that, to help humble you and to help correct some things that need to be correct, that you wouldn't be able to do on your own because of the narcissism that exists in us, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:absolutely, Jack, and I think it's not only that in narcissism you might think you're great. There's kind of a reverse narcissism that can develop sometimes, especially among pastors who know that thinking they're great is probably not a fruit of the spirit and it's kind of the inverse of that. You can think very poorly of yourself. But the issue is that you're always thinking about yourself and you think everything is a reflection of you and everything somehow comes back to you and connects to you and you're constantly thinking how does what this person say, just said, reflect on me and how does this decision that gets made, how does it affect me? Narcissism isn't so much about your view of self, but that everything ultimately comes back to the self and a narcissist is walking around going.
Speaker 2:It's all about me. It's all about me, it's all about me, and that can happen in really positive ways. It's all about me because I'm great or it's all about me because I'm terrible, but in the end, the common thread is it's all about me, and we need people in our life who look at it and be like we love you. But this, this is not about you, right, and this has no reflection on you, right, and and to and to invite you into the freedom of going. You know what it's not about me, and that's that's actually some of the most freeing, freeing information. I can be told. It's not about me.
Speaker 1:This is there's nothing to do with me. I get to just enjoy this moment and not worry about how it affects me or what it says about me. Matt, how does that inspire your pastoral leadership? I think there's some wisdom to drill into. Like working with a team and they're gifting which is different than mine, you think worship or you think security, that's probably a good one. Like I shouldn't be hanging out with the security team, they get like, oh man, I'm the guy. So how does it inspire you to release a lot to your team and just say I know it's not about me and you're, because it's. Ultimately, it's the Lord's right, that's right, the Lord's church right, and he's equipped us in the body and so if the pastor is going around, I got to micromanage all of this. If you're struggling with micromanagement in the 80-hour work week, it could be that you're a narcissist. It could be. You may need to ask for some feedback. So, yeah, anything more to say about leading on?
Speaker 2:a team. Well, I think it's about so much of healthy leadership is about clear boundaries and understanding. Here's a job that only you can do, given your responsibilities and your allowed, what isn't allowed, what's encouraged, what's discouraged. That's my job as a leader is to say here's what we're here for, here's what we are going to do, here's what we're not going to do, and then to create that box and then to trust you to use your gifts, to color within that, to make whatever decisions within that domain that you feel are right and good for us to accomplish the goals that we've shared together. And my task is that I will not. My promise to you as a leader is that I will not come in and do your work in your domain, but I do reserve the right to come in and ask about it whenever I want. So that's the agreement that we make I will not step into your field that we've defined and do your work, but I always have permission to step in and ask about your work. Right, and that asking that curiosity is 99% of management, just staying informed and staying in communication and so and so, uh, you know, for me, being in a trying imperfectly, but trying to be an empowering leader is about having a clear understanding with everyone. That's on my team of here's, the. Here are the things that only you can do, because you're the expert here. You're the one who's got the time allotted into the week to do it as well. And then here's the stuff that only I can do. Let's define the wins, the goals uh, what's inbounds, what's out of bounds together and then, trusting you to go color within those lines, make all the decisions you need to, and my task is to stay curious about the work that you're doing and you are to stay open to my curiosity, and then we'll stay. That's how we'll maintain our trust throughout it.
Speaker 2:And I think, for a lot of leaders, I don't think the issue is micromanagement. I think for a lot of leaders, I don't think the issue is micromanagement. I think for a lot of leaders, the issue is under management. And if micromanagement is coming in and doing your job for you, or insisting that they do it right alongside of you, and then speaking into it and tweaking all the buttons and knobs that are supposed to be your buttons and knobs, then what under management is is just a total disengagement and then being surprised after the fact when things are off course and new values are at work, and then it makes it 10 times more difficult to come in and course correct, right.
Speaker 2:And so I think the answer to staying in the balance between micromanagement and under management is just that agreement for communication and your commitment as a leader to stay curious, stay engaged constantly, pop in and say how's this coming? You told me you're going to do this. How's that going? Remember, the goal is this. Are we moving towards that? What do you need from me? And just constantly having that communication and check-in?
Speaker 3:Having knowledge of what's going well, what's not going well, and then also an alignment on what the vision is. And I think when that kind of communication is going on, then you actually have the environment where you can give a lot away and delegate a lot to the person, right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, to summarize. I like to summarize, matt, and get your feedback on this. But a senior leader on any team, senior pastor, whatever senior leader, has responsibility for three different questions. Answer, making sure, three different questions. Where are we going? So that's vision. Um, how are we going? That's more the system and the role, responsibility building the team and obviously you should remain very, very curious about how it's going. And then, how well are we? This is culture. Then how well are we loving one another on our way to there? And love gets defined by care and courageous, difficult conversations. Love, this is not a soft, passive love. This is a very active, active love, just like Jesus loved us. So any response to those kind of three primary overarching questions vision, systems and culture.
Speaker 2:I think that's. I think that's perfect. Um, and you know, I I'd put that under the category of just really healthy management. And and and for me, I make a distinction between leadership and management. And what I found for myself, what I realized a couple of years ago, is that I had read a ton of books and gone to a ton of conferences to talk about leadership, but what I didn't know was how to manage people and they're connected, but different skill sets.
Speaker 2:Leadership happens at this kind of higher level. Higher plane, it is about things like vision. Higher plane, it is about things like vision, direction, culture. But management is the day-to-day relational interaction to task that you have with the people who are on your team.
Speaker 2:And I've found for myself and I think it's probably true for a lot of pastors is I knew a lot of theory about leadership and listened to a lot of great podcasts on it, but I didn't know much about management, and so what I've had to do, as our staff has grown and my responsibilities have changed, is try to backfill the deficit of management expertise that that that existed for me and try to figure out how to become a good manager without being a micromanager, but still manage people on a day-to-day basis. I think I think a lot of, I think a lot of people in a lot of churches, especially because they just don't teach you any of this in seminary and a lot of us don't come up in corporate environments to learn any of this. We just don't know how to manage people, and I think 90% of management is communication.
Speaker 1:Amen, let's get under the hood just a little bit. You said you ask questions when you're meeting with your team. What are the top questions that you weekly ask them?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I ask about specific tasks and initiatives that we've agreed upon. That are going to be the focus, so it's not just open-ended of how's it going, what do you need? It's? We talked last week about having a fresh articulation of our discipleship pathway. Where are you on that and what do you need from me to make sure that we meet that deadline? So I'm asking about specific things.
Speaker 2:So I'm so I come into those conversations aware of what their projects are, what the objectives are, and asking for updates on them and and, and, and, and and, and pointing my my desire to resource them towards helping them accomplish those goals, and then asking other questions that say things like this Um, you know so. So, uh, I wanted you to have your budget for the next fiscal year prepped by Friday. Um, you're telling me you might not get there. Um, what? What are the implications of us not having the budget numbers ready by Friday? I've got a thought of what those are, but you tell me.
Speaker 2:And so, just again, just really trying to be trying to be curious about very specific things. Now, I don't have to be too far into the weeds in each area of each person that I manage, but just I should know what their their top, their top objectives are, their primary tasks are, and I should be seeking to, to, to lead towards those tasks, and so I mean that's really it is. How is this specific thing going? What do you need from me to see this specific task through to fruition and, if necessary, what are the implications of us not completing this task and how do we manage? Good, those are primary questions for me.
Speaker 1:Jack, any take.
Speaker 3:No, I think that's excellent. Yeah, I mean, a lot of what we talk about in leadership is theoretical. I often find that I call it the ministry of presence being present with people, and I love how you said, where you're not necessarily dictating how to do things, but you're asking a lot of questions. I think what those questions do is they show that you actually care about their work and that you're available to them and if they get stuck, you're a resource for them and it just makes sure that accountability doesn't get lost. I was inspired by the book I don't know if you've read this book the Nine Lies About Work. Have you ever read that one?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:That's one I've recommended to a lot of people. But they basically said your scope of leadership, basically, like Jesus had 12 disciples, right.
Speaker 3:So like the scope of leadership that any person has really boils down to the number of people that you can have a meaningful meeting with every single week, right. And if your team has grown beyond that that you can't have meaningful meetings with everybody every week, then you're going to have to reorganize because that means that some people are not being led well and managed well. It may be that you have to create a layer or delegate some of those people to other leaders. You're going to have to tackle that because otherwise you're serving as a bottleneck for the team and people are going to get neglected and there's not going to be good communication.
Speaker 3:I thought that was a brilliant aha for me and you know we've looked at that with the school. Like what happens a lot of times in the school is like every single person is direct reporting to the principal. Can the principal actually have a meeting with all of these teachers, a developmental meeting with them every single, you know, every single week? Do you have to create a team that can help you with that? Right, and I know we've seen that in our school and it really was brilliant. It helped a lot with that, yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it really is critical to create manageable teams for you to manage, but then, but then also to find a means for management as an expression of your leadership. That is that really works. Then also to find a means for management, um, as an expression of your leadership. That is that that really works for you. So, so for me, the shift I made a while ago is I I do one-on-ones every other week with my direct reports, but what I shifted to is trying to take an hour of every day for management, and what that means for me is I try to bounce around and spend 15 minutes of just curiosity with every direct report every day. Some days it's not possible.
Speaker 2:People are bouncing in and out of the office and what that looks like for me is I'm going to spend 10 to 15 minutes in your doorway just saying, hey, how's this one thing going, tell me about an update on this other thing. And it crossed my mind this morning that you might need help with this third thing. Talk to me about that and do that with everybody. And I spend an hour a day managing those relationships, managing the work that they're doing, and then I'm done and there's seven, eight other hours of the day to do the tasks that only I can do and that, for me, keeps that, keeps those relationships constant for me.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing I try to do is, you know, I'm a more and more an early riser, and so if there's anything at the start of the, if there's anything I can do at the start of the day that makes sure that people are going to wake up and have all their questions for for from me already answered, then I'm going to do that. I don't want anybody waiting on me for things throughout the day. So I'll get up early and I'll do some. I'll work out and I'll do some writing and then I will. I'll hit the email for 45 minutes, um, and I will make sure that any questions are outstanding from previous days, any deliverables for me are all, for the most part, taken care of so that when they show up to work they're able to do their work. Then I'll wait on anything from me.
Speaker 1:Dude. Such good practical pastoral leadership wisdom there, bro, couldn't agree with it more. What would you say to someone who's like you're talking management, you're talking leadership. Jesus is about shepherding, not managing. I got one story Jesus was a manager. Let's be real. Jesus sent the 12. He sent the 70, 72. And then they went and did the thing and he asked for a report about how the thing went. When they came back, he cared enough and then he saw you're getting the baghead. Don't rejoice in the wrong things, you know. But but he cared about their work. God cares about our work and I, you know to your point.
Speaker 1:Going back under management, I think there's an epidemic of that. I think you've got a smaller percentage of pastors who have, like, tried to do the management thing but have kind of fallen off in terms of you know the micro in the weeds. I got to do it and maybe they've justified that because, well, matt, you've got a bigger team, you've got a bigger church, et cetera. Well, you can work with a lot of your lay folks to build a team and and then manage their work, to be sure. But yeah, I think you're right, man, I think it's under under management and I can kind of hide in my office, and which is really ironic because I'm hiding in my office right now doing this podcast. But anyway, I can hide away and and I just kind of release them. Well, that's a fast track toward things going off the rails. One they're not going to think you care. I think it's about the relationship. It's about the relationship, so anything more I kind of just dump there. Jesus is manager. Any response, though, to that Matt.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's accurate. I mean, look, I make a distinction between leadership and management, but ultimately what I think is that management is leadership lived out. Management is leadership at the ground floor. So if leadership is about kind of this broad responsibility and these higher concepts that you are charged to articulate and lead people toward, if leadership is a mantle, then management is the day-to-day expression of that responsibility and that mantle that you've been given. Like, what do you do at two o'clock on a Tuesday with your leadership? That answer is management. You're either a good manager or a poor manager. But what you do in relation to other people who work in the building with you, who are responsible to you in some capacity, that's leadership lived out at the most fundamental level.
Speaker 2:And Tim, I think of course Jesus, was a manager. He had 12 guys that he was responsible for. He had objectives for them and he held them accountable to the mission. He was about ready to hand to them and getting them ready to take it and run about ready to hand to them and getting them ready to take it and run with it and change the world, all the while he was being mindful of these much higher aims, these much higher objectives that he had. But he had to figure out how do I get these people to move towards these higher goals at three o'clock in Jerusalem, in the middle of a mundane day? Right, and that's management.
Speaker 1:So good. You think of the high priestly prayer and Jesus' upper room discourse, john 13,. He's modeling service. He's then greater things. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is going to come, he's going to lead you into all truth and then this higher aim of this unity connected to the Father, and then we're connected to the Father by faith in His Son. So yeah, jesus is obviously the greatest human leader of all time, tongue-in-cheek, to be sure. So let's get into communication. I think there's a lot to learn in terms of really solid preaching, teaching, just public discourse, et cetera. What are your top three priorities for effective communication? Preaching, general public speaking. Matt, as one who's been gifted in that area, just fill us with wisdom, bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think most communication fails for lack of preparation, lack of practice and then lack of analysis. Those three things, preparation being the writing, the thinking, the wrestling that must be done. I know a lot of people think that they can communicate kind of off the cuff or shoot from the hip, but the people who can do that substantively, effectively, winsomely, are incredibly rare. And it's usually built upon a foundation of having done it quote, unquote the right way for decades. Facts right, yes, um and so and so, uh, most, most communication fails out of the gate because there's a lack of preparation and so a lack of wrestling with the text, a lack of knowing exactly what it is you're trying to say, a lack of writing. The Holy Spirit can speak as clearly and as forcefully on a Tuesday afternoon when you're writing as he can on a Sunday morning when you're in the moment preaching, right and so preparation and then practice, and this comes to me from my theater background.
Speaker 2:For many communicators, sadly, the first time that they run through their talk, whether they're giving a speech at the Rotary Club or they're preaching a sermon on Sunday morning, is when they stand up to give the speech or give the sermon. Yeah, they've thought about it on a couple of car rides. They've mumbled it to themselves a couple of times, but the first time they've ever stood on their feet and tried to proclaim and teach and talk is when they've actually had to get up in front of people. And so what people are watching is not a speech or a sermon, but they're watching a rehearsal. And people deserve better than that. And so and so people. So the first time you run through your sermon should be in your office early on a Sunday morning or at home on a Saturday afternoon. Like actually put it on its feet, like stand there and act as if you're going to preach it. Don't stop yourself. Act as if there's an audience in front of you. You don't have the ability to stop and say oh, I forgot to say this one thing, you just got to keep going. Do that once, twice, three times, and then let your sermon on Sunday morning be an actual presentation of what you've rehearsed. Rehearsing doesn't make it fake, it makes it clear. Rehearsing doesn't make it performance, it makes it professional. And you are a professional communicator At least you should desire to be one.
Speaker 2:And then the third piece is analysis. No chef worth their salt. Pun intended, will force people to eat things that they haven't tasted. You learned that on day one at the Culinary Institute of America. Have you tasted it? Would you eat it?
Speaker 2:And yet there are a whole lot of communicators out there who've never had to sit and listen to their own voice or to watch their own mannerisms and sit under their own presentation and teaching. Do not subject people to what you are not willing to be subjected to. So you should watch your sermons, you should listen to your speeches and you should sit there and think what did I take away from this? What was clear? What bad habits did I notice? And then seek to tweak and adjust.
Speaker 2:So I've been in a pastor now for 18, almost 19 years and I watch back every single sermon that I preach because there is always something that I could learn from watching myself communicate. So right now I've noticed that there's a couple of bad habits that I've developed, some filler words that I start to use At the moment, my go-to filler word that I don't want to use. It muddies the communication is now I'll use the word now to transition from one moment to the next rather than just and what I? What I'm doing in that, in that moment is trying to buy myself a half a second to think of what's said next, when in reality, I know this as a as a trained communicator it's better to let silence speak than to just speak and fill the silence, and so what I should do is take a beat, take a pause and then say what I need to say next.
Speaker 2:So, so, but I only know that because I'm sitting there watching, cause I don't I don't hear myself say it in the moment and going, I'm saying the word now as a transitional word every 15 seconds. I got to cut that out, and so that helps me become a more disciplined communicator. And, and, and it really comes down to those three things Do the hard work of writing and wrestling, set aside some time to run through what you're going to talk about and then review what you do. It doesn't have to be every single week I'm a weirdo but every so often, review what you do and seek to learn and grow. Those are the three fundamental things.
Speaker 1:So good man.
Speaker 2:So, like, when people come to me like I want to be a better communicator, I'll ask them, like, talk to me what your preparation looks like, talk to me what your practice looks like. When was the last time you watched your own sermon? Go back and start these things, but make this part of your, part of your routine, and then we can talk about the tools that you're using or tricks of the trade and those kinds of things. But until you get those foundational pieces, it doesn't really matter. Like there's a lot of guys who want to talk about, like, do you use an outline or a manuscript? Are you? Do you functionally memorize? Do you fully memorize? Do you have notes? Do you not have notes? I like I can nerd out about that too. Set that aside.
Speaker 2:First, tell me, are you actually, are you actually writing anything Like anything at all? You would be shocked Maybe you wouldn't be. You'd be shocked at the number of guys who prepare nothing to preach, nothing to preach. Like well, I just wrestle with it throughout the week and I think about it, and then I get up there and I'm like dude, you are not Tim Keller. Like who do you think you are? You are not Tim Keller. Like who do you think you are? You are not Tim Keller, and even Tim like I got to see his notes one time. Like Tim wrote his stuff and you know, if he can't wing it, neither can you man.
Speaker 1:Anyway, sorry, no well, this is your thing, man. You're underneath your heading, it's preacher lab. This is the way God has gifted you, so such good words of wisdom. I like full sentence structure in terms of thought progress. I don't like just bulleted, half-formed thoughts. So talk to. Let's just go deeper in terms of the process of writing, and you can get into what you think in terms of manuscript and outline, and I'd love to hear as you're coming up are you a one idea guy? Is there an overarching hook that's kind of grabbing a lot of your preaching, or yeah? So talk about some of those things in terms of preparation.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when it comes to writing, like crafting a sermon, crafting a sermon I'm with you, tim. I like to, even though I have a shorthand that I use to write my manuscripts. I write out a manuscript and I want to make sure that the points that need to be communicated are crafted and intentional in advance. If you're hoping to have impact as a communicator, at some point your brain is going to have to do that work of taking a concept that you feel is important, to communicate it and distilling it into a sentence that is memorable and clear. You're either going to do that work in the writing or you're going to do that work in the moment because you've got just a concept or an idea on an outline and then you're hoping that your brain can like be witty. In the moment, my brain doesn't work that way. Most people's don't Um, uh, but at some point you're going to have to. Your brain's going to have to do that work right If or you're just not going to be clear, concise and compelling. And so I choose to be a wordsmith and to really wrestle with my key points and key moments of delivery in the writing process, and so I'll make sure that the significant moments in my sermon I really dog the details of what the phrase is that I'm going to try and deliver, how it's going to roll off the tongue and how it's going to hit the ear. And I don't do that for every sentence in the sermon, but for the points, the major moments. I really, really wrestle with that, really wrestle with that. It's the same process where, if you've seen Jerry Seinfeld's documentary that he made about his own career, he talks about really wrestling with the way words fall, the way it comes out, because he's like look, this is communication, it's got to hit the heart and mind in a certain way. I feel the same way about all other forms of communication, especially preaching. So I do try to craft full sentences, fully formed thoughts, and then organize it in a way that's memorable for me In terms of the overall content of a sermon.
Speaker 2:I am a one big idea guy and I'm usually a deductive preacher, meaning I will tell you where we're going to go, what the big point is, and then I will prove it throughout the sermon and then circle back to it at the end. For me, that kind of linear and rational approach to communication, it works for me. That's how I like to be taught and talked to, and I find it's easy for me to do and it's easy for me to remember, and so that's usually what it is. It's here's the big idea for today. Here's the big thing that I'm going to share with you. That comes from today's text, and now I'm going to show you some problems that I'm going to illustrate for you a couple of things that show that this is a problem that needs to be solved, and then I'm going to show you how Jesus solves this problem for us. But all of it is just proof for support of the big idea at the very beginning.
Speaker 2:And I find there's something really satisfying for most listeners. When you present a problem or a big idea and it's so clear and so compelling, they go huh, I agree that that's a problem. I just don't know that you're going to be able to convince me that Jesus is the answer to that problem. Huh, or you put something out there so compelling, they go. I don't know that I agree with you at all, but I am now intrigued. I'm now intrigued to see what you have to say about it. People like that. And then when you go through your rational progression all, of course, always culminating in the proclamation of Christ, um, uh, crucified for our sins, um, and then circle back to the beginning. There's a sense of resolution that people feel like, ah, you kept your promise, you kept your promise, you brought me full circle. That leaves people feeling really satisfied at the end of a talk. Now there there's a bunch of other formulas, but for me problem, that one works the best.
Speaker 1:Yep, I love problem solution too.
Speaker 2:This is so good.
Speaker 1:So, uh, do you, do you memorize entirety and talk about your memory map?
Speaker 2:Cause I know you do, but like give get under the hood a little bit of how you do it. Yeah, so I am a. I would say I'm a functional, I functionally memorize, yeah, and so I used to. Again, coming out of my theater background, I used to do like a verbatim, word for word, 99% accuracy memorization of my manuscripts as a, and that worked really, really well. It just took a ton of time. It took me I would spend about five hours every Saturday just memorizing and then another two hours before services on Sunday. Uh, memorizing by also like rehearsing and just reciting, reciting it, just it was. It was, uh, untenable long-term for me. So what I moved to is using using using devices like memory palaces Yep, that's what I use to to to do more functional but still highly accurate memorization of my manuscript.
Speaker 2:And so, for those who aren't familiar with memory palaces, you can just Google it. There's a couple of great books on Amazon that teach you how to do it really quickly. And so, basically, what it is is you. You take a familiar place, you know the house you grew up in, right, and a familiar route within that place, like the journey from the front door through the living room, through the kitchen, out to the backyard where you played with your dog growing up, and then along that along message, your manuscript, basically in chunks, and you place it along that route with certain very memorable images. So if you have a whole first section that's about we talked about narcissism and pride and and things so you take the first section of your message, which presents the problem of narcissism, you, you create some ludicrous images that represent all the things you mentioned in that section, right, and you place them at that first way point in your mental map and so then when you're rehearsing your message or preaching your message, you're just walking that route, thinking of those images and remembering your message.
Speaker 2:I find that works really well. There's another tactic that I use uh, not so I'll bounce between these where I will um uh, uh, I'm, I prefer to be. Um, uh, when I'm memorizing, I have to have movement. I'm a, I'm a like a kinetic memorizer.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, so, so what I will do is I will break my manuscript into like seven to nine chunks.
Speaker 2:I will, I will, I will give a label that's usually very visual to each section of the manuscript, right, and then I will, on a giant whiteboard here that I have, my office, I will preach it out loud, having read through it a bunch of times, and I will write out major words in each section of that manuscript. As I'm preaching it out loud, and for me that helps cement it in my brain, I've got a title for each section. I'm preaching it out loud, I'm writing key words from that section on the board as I say them, and so by the end of my rehearsal process my whiteboard looks like a madman has just scrawled terrible things on it, but it's from my memorization process. And once I do that, once I go through it, reciting it verbally, writing it out keywords physically, and then walking the map of those seven to nine sections, I could preach it cold. Yeah, so those are the processes that I kind of bounce back and forth between Jack thoughts.
Speaker 3:Well, this is all very fascinating for me. I've been hanging out in this alternate seminary program and I had a chance to kind of guest preach just recently First one ever in the last couple of weeks here and it's been such a learning experience for me. What I've come to know right off the bat is like absolutely memorizing verbatim. A manuscript is definitely not the way to go for me. I have to know the material really, really, really well and speak about it authoritatively, even if I didn't have the manuscript in front of me.
Speaker 3:I think this is just getting to know myself that I can be a really great speaker in public when I have the confidence of the knowledge of the material that I'm coming up there. If I'm depending on the script right, If I'm depending on the eloquence of the script I kind of feel like I'm lost at that point in time. I have to feel like I'm relying on the substance of the material and then I can be. That allows me to adapt to the audience, Because I think what happens is we may think that how we're going to say something is the way it's going to land to an audience, and then you realize that the audience is engaging with you in a different way and I don't know if you've had you two much more seasoned guys than I am have noticed that where you think that this is how it's going to land.
Speaker 3:But then you see the eyes of the people and say I've got to say this a different way.
Speaker 3:Right, that's right, yeah, yeah you have to leave yourself space to be responsive to what's actually happening in the room. Right for sure, right, yeah, and so to me it feels like the most natural way is to just know the material well enough that you can speak authoritatively about it, even if you didn't have the manuscript there. But then the manuscript actually is a great tool to have, because at certain points in time you realize, oh, I may need to take a peek at this really quick in order for this to flow as it should have.
Speaker 2:Right, and it's okay. It's not even just okay. You can be a master communicator while using a manuscript. I mean, it's not as though like without notes is better, and with a manuscript is worse.
Speaker 2:I mean you just, but the same things apply Again. So a lot of guys who have a manuscript they don't. They haven't read through it a bunch of times, they haven't practiced Right, so like. So, one of my favorite preachers one of my favorite preachers, uh, is john ortberg, and he was big back in the 90s and things. He's a manuscript preacher man like he. He has his notes in front of him and he reads from his notes a lot of times, but he's such an excellent refined presenter, even as he's reading his manuscript and an excellent writer like I'm I am locked in.
Speaker 2:So like, even if you're going to use a manuscript, go for it, just just prepare rehearse, make, make sure that you can lift your eyes from that manuscript and see me as a human and maybe riff for just a second and go right back to that that manuscript, Like let me, let me connect with you on a human level.
Speaker 2:People who preach from a manuscript, who do it poorly it's not that they read poorly or present poorly, it's that they are forsaking opportunity to connect on a human level with their audience. So how do I build in humanity here and let them feel like they get, they connect with me and see me even as I stand behind these notes?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good. Last question on on preaching this is I love it. Uh, what is the role of leadership and kind of vision from the pulpit? You'll get a lot of perspectives on this. I'd love to get your take.
Speaker 2:You know, I think, man, some leaders will probably disagree with me. You know I don't see the pulpit for me as a place to really lay down vision, set direction for the church on a Sunday morning, at least not explicitly. You do implicitly, at least I do implicitly by the tone I set in my preaching, by what we preach about, how we talk about it. That of course sets the agenda for the church and of course the preaching schedule, the content of our preaching, is all going to be influenced by the leadership objectives that we've set. And so of course there's a tie between the overall leadership of the organization and what's preached on a Sunday morning.
Speaker 2:It's just never felt for I, I, could faithfully and authentically preach my leadership in some capacity on a Sunday morning, say, hey, you know, this is the year of X, y, z here at St Mark and we have these three big goals in front of us.
Speaker 2:That to me feels more like like Steve jobs at a, you know, at a investors meeting than a Sunday morning event, sunday morning preaching event. And so I, you know, I really haven't done a lot of that personally. I will do that at other points in a Sunday morning service set aside from the sermon, and of course we have other venues where that's much more, where I can be much more explicit about speaking from my leadership position as kind of the CEO of St Mark. We'll do that at voters meetings and, of course, board meetings and town halls that we host. But really Sunday morning for me is about trying to embody, as a pastor, the presence of Jesus for my people and then also just to find as creative and winsome a way as possible to tell the same story, week after week, about Christ crucified for sinners and letting that influence the mission, the heart, the, the mission, the heart, the, the objectives of the church.
Speaker 1:That's good. I think that my perspective on this has evolved more in your direction. There there are some times when you just can't get around it. It's a, it's a Sunday, we got a, we got a couple of vision Sundays and so there's going to be, there's going to be you know days, and so there's going to be, there's going to be you know videos, et cetera. But if we don't have and you could say 10 to 15 minutes for the proclamation of law and gospel, like we're really, we're really missing out. So I think you can have some seasons where it's a little bit more. Hey, we got maximum audience here. Uh, we're going to talk about who we are and where we're going a little bit, but it feels if the entirety of the message is that, yeah, it's not, it feels not great. So, yeah, thanks for thanks for just being vulnerable about that, bro. I think. I think I'm moving more in your direction, and there are some people that are on the far end of the spectrum like why would you not do it? And just do it wisely. Let's say that and don't forget that your first task is proclamation of law and gospel connected to the never changing word of God. That is your call.
Speaker 1:So let's man a couple final questions. We didn't get to some of the things I wanted to look at, but communication is your thing, it's so good. So personal soul care practices for you. You've been in it now 20 some years, I think. When you head into your forties, matt, this is where a lot of leaders really really struggle, like the, the me in front of people and the me not with people can be two very separate, separate things, especially for cause you and I both have a similar background in terms of performance arts and all that kind of stuff. Uh, how do you take care of your, your soul as a leader?
Speaker 2:Well, let me first just say that my objectives, my professional objectives, have really changed in the last 10 years. You know, I planted a couple churches and I've pastored a really, really big church before, and I've pastored a really really big church before and my professional objectives used to be about I want to lead a really big church and be an amazing leader and write some books and make an impact for Jesus, and certainly I would still appreciate the opportunity to do some of those things. But my professional objective now is to not blow up my life and to finish well and anyone who asks I don't want to have my life blow up because of some stupid decision I've made and I want to finish the race set before me as a pastor honorably. That's my goal and every other choice I'm trying to make right now is towards that end, because I've just watched too many leaders. Too many leaders and you have, you guys have to just blow their life up because of some stupid choice they've made, typically at this particular stage of life, and there's a lot of factors that go into that. But I just don't, I just really don't want that to be my, my story and so and so to talk about soul care. You know, um, I, I see the care of my own soul as key towards that objective of finishing well and not blowing up my life. And so, uh, so for me, that's where the that's, that's what the stakes are of my own self care Right. So for me, that's what the stakes are of my own self-care right.
Speaker 2:And so what I try to do is I try to find time every single day to do something physical. And so I go for a run every single morning because I need to accomplish something. And I know that if I don't accomplish something in a day, that I get really antsy, and when I'm antsy I make poor choices. So I try to get a win early. Right, that's how the Lord's wired me. So try to get a win early so that I'm in a good, positive space internally. And then, while I do that, I I try to listen to and soak in as much of the scriptures as possible so that, that is, I'm being poured into. Um, I find that I am most unhealthy when I'm pouring out and I'm an empty vessel. That's when I make really poor choices. And so I try to start my day with a win. That's why I go for a run. And then I try to start my day with as much of the scriptures being poured into my heart and soul as possible, so that I've got something to then offer to other people, and that that's getting.
Speaker 2:First say in my life, the news feed, or the demands of people on my team or even the needs of my family. The first say is what does God have to say, what does his story say? And that is filling me up. And then the third piece of that is I have safe people, people who don't need me to be a successful pastor or a particularly holy person, they just need me to be in their life. And I have regular dates with my safe people.
Speaker 2:So every Friday, every Friday, I have lunch with my best friend. He happens to be a pastor as well, and I can tell him anything, and he can tell me anything. And we sit and we have lunch and we drink a beer, and he can tell me anything. And we sit and we have lunch and we drink a beer. And I know that I've got a safe person to listen to me, who will also notice if I'm acting weirdly, strangely, making poor choices, and will say it to me. And then I'd add one more I have a therapist that I talk to on a regular basis, so every two weeks I talk to a therapist, and it's a man of faith, a former pastor, now licensed clinical social worker, and so anything I'm dealing with relationally personally, spiritually, I process, I process with him, and so so having safe people, including professional vocational counselors, I think is really key for your soul care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, man, so good. Thanks for being open to the Holy Spirit changing objectives, because I share in this season of life, the same. Be faithful in my various vocations, as husband and father primarily, and then as church leader, and finish with significance. As church leader and finish with significance, we just had a life well-lived over multiple decades, like running for many, many years. A shout-out to my dad and others who have done it for 40, 50 years.
Speaker 1:Dave Davis wrote a book, president of the Michigan District, called Toward Significance and our lives. What I took from that book is our lives are called to be signs. Sign is insignificance, right Signs to point to Jesus, signposts. And when we, because of lack of character, discipline, et cetera, when the Holy Spirit and His Word, god's Word, just isn't saturating our souls, and then we're listening to a lot of lies which lead us to fear or pride, it's so, so easy to just start that drift, that soul care drift. And then we get to a point where we're like man, what am I? Even? I don't know if I even love what I'm doing anymore, like I want to. I want to close as in love, and it's all by the spirit's power, as in love with Jesus. Jesus as I was in the first year when I first got to know Him, first started. I don't want to forget what it's like not to know. I want the mystery of being a proclaimer of the Word and seeing Him work through Word and sacrament. I want the passion and the fire of the Holy Spirit to be just as alive in me at 75 or whenever, as it was at 25, 35. And that takes that takes soul care, discipline, the Jesus direction over a year, over years, being very, very centered in our rhythms of heart, body, mind, spirit care. And I'm just praying for that.
Speaker 1:I I, as I close, to ask questions about the LCMS. We haven't talked off and talk about the LCMS. I think there's, I think there's not enough conversation around pastoral soul care and the way then that we treat each other poorly could be because our souls are not tended for. We have wounds, you know, hurt people hurt people, and and so we're just, we're just not kind and charitable, we're not thinking as clearly, we're more black and white either, or we can be kind of angry and tribal with one another, and I think a lot of it is because we've not prioritized soul care. So with that, what do you hope the LCMS starts to look like in the next decade or two. Matt Last question.
Speaker 2:Matt. Last question I hope and I pray that our church body shifts away from a fear-based protectionist mindset. Right now we are very afraid of protecting who we are and what we have versus sharing what we've been given. You can't do both at the same time. You can't share what you've been given and protect who you've always been. You can't go on witch hunts for theological and cultural orthodoxy at the same time that you share the good news with Jesus. One of them is going to win out, right.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that theological orthodoxy does not matter. What I'm saying is that if you live in fear of getting your theology wrong, you live in fear of the wrong people getting in power, you live in fear of losing cultural prominence then every decision you make will be in relation to that fear. Make will be about in relation to that fear, and what you will not do is be faithful in the task in front of you, which is to share the life-changing love of Jesus with as many people as possible and to equip the church to be active and powerful in that aim. And so you know, I hope, very simply, I hope that you know years from now, our church body has moved beyond fear and back into a place of joyfully sharing who we are. On the topic of pastors, though, I think related to that is we have to find a way for it to be easier, without it being watered down, for men to become pastors and also for men to stop being pastors.
Speaker 3:I think there need to be more on ramps and there need to be more off ramps.
Speaker 2:It needs to be okay for men to quit. Good, if it's not safe to quit without fear of rejection or persecution or questioning, then it's not safe to start friends persecution or questioning then it's not safe to start friends, and that keeps a lot of men in positions of power when they're no longer called and they're no longer healthy, and that creates more problems. So it's gotta be easier for guys to get in because we need them. But it also has to be okay for guys to be like I'm not called to do this anymore. I'm going to go into the marketplace and I'm going to, I'm going to be in ministry there Awesome, great, that's wonderful. It's got to be okay to do that too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, this has been so, so good, matt. Thank you for your generosity of time, jack.
Speaker 3:Any closing comments and what you're taking from Matt today no, I think your assessment as you talk about kind of the greater, the wider condition of things takes us back to that earlier conversation about narcissism, right, which isn't always about look how great I am, but it's just looking at ourselves me, me me right Rather than looking outside of ourselves and I think that's a call of repentance, not just for the individual, but I think a collective call right, A collective call for the entire church is that we have to look less at ourselves and more at Christ and more at the community that we're trying to serve.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:And the more I fall in love with good doctrine which all good doctrine points me to Jesus Christ, crucified theology of the cross and carrying out the servant, adaptive leadership skills that the Holy Spirit wants to work within us the more I do that, the more I am released. I want to just share it. There's creativity, there's spontaneity, there's the adventure of following God at work in the world. I just want to be a part of that. And yeah, there's no protection. The perfect love of Jesus casts out fear, man. So let's dream big dreams, let's manage well leaders I love that today, matt. And let's boldly proclaim. Let's improve we can always improve. Let's improve as proclaimers for the sake of raising up other proclaimers just like Matt. Hey, matt, if people want to hang out with you, connect with you, how can they do so, bro?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can get more information. So I do communications coaching. So if you've got a big speech coming up or you just want to get better at proclaiming the gospel in your particular setting, I do work with pastors around the country, helping them sharpen their communication skills. And then also we've got podcasts and books that we put out and it's all over at makeitsimpleorg.
Speaker 1:Makeitsimpleorg. This is lead time. Sharing is caring, like, subscribe, comment. Wherever it is you take in hopefully, creative, jesus-centered conversations like this, praying for a new day in the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod, to be sure. Wonderful work, matt, wonderful work Jack, amen. Good to be here with you guys, thank you.